Tag Archives: finished quilt

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Another day, another baby quilt. I actually finished both of these quilts on Saturday (never mind that my labels say September... at least it was close). I was able to deliver this one to a sweet baby girl yesterday. And her 4-year-old big brother received Zoom Zoom. Yay for quilt gifts!

Baby Girl has a room decorated in coral, salmon, mint and aqua, with grey accents. That meant shopping for fabric, since these are not colors in my stash (except the aqua, I suppose). I think the backing fabric is perfect and I was happy with what I found to accompany it, though I found the task a bit of a challenge. The background fabric on the front is a digitally printed fabric from Hawthorne Threads. They produce a wide variety of prints in many one-color options. Once I realized they had the right mint green, choosing the hummingbirds was easy. Baby Girl's parents' wedding featured a hummingbird motif, so I knew it was just the right print.

I designed the quilt before I decided on the fabrics. Initially my grey areas were pieced from two rectangles, but when I decided on a two-way directional print for those sections I redesigned it to be pieced from squares in alternating directions.

I chose to quilt with walking foot quilting. I'd planned free motion quilting for every other project at the top of my "to be quilted" list, so I thought I'd change it up with this one. I began by marking a line at a 60 degree angle with blue tape for my first line of quilting. Then I used the guide on my walking foot to make parallel lines with 1 1/2" spacing. I initially planned a second pass in the opposite 60 degree angle to make crosshatch quilting, but I ended up holding after the first pass. Sometimes done is better than perfect... or less detailed, in this case, is better than twice the quilting time. ;-)

I'm uncertain why my stitch length is so irregular with walking foot quilting. Perhaps it has to do with my tension. Thoughts?

I cut into my backing fabric to try it as the feature fabric in the center of the front of the quilt. Then I decided to stick with my initial plan of the poppies. That left me with a backing fabric too small to back the entire quilt. :-/ I decided to piece in my label instead of adding a secondary fabric in the backing. (Name and birthdate removed from the photo.)

Then all that was left was to roll it up and wrap it. I hope Baby Girl loves it. I know her mom does. :-) It was so hard to keep this one a secret. I just knew that if I shared even a glimpse, my friend would recognize her color palette and my surprise would be ruined.

Thank you for visiting!

I'm linking up to the Q3 Finish Along finishes party. See all my Q3 WIPs in my goal post.

A pattern is available for my Knock Knock baby quilt pattern (shown above) in one size, 36 1/2" x 36 1/2".

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I have two more Very Hungry Caterpillar quilts to quilt and bind, but this one is done! It's even wrapped and ready to be gifted.

I've loved this fabric line since I first saw it before I had kids. I've used it numerous times. One of my current unfinished projects is a twin-sized quilt for my son. When I decided to make him a twin sized quilt, I was also at the point that I decided I was beginning to feel done with this fabric. (I've been using it over the past seven years.) So while I was making Fat Quarter Fizz blocks (free pattern from Fat Quarter Shop) for his quilt, I just kept making more. I ended up having enough blocks for an additional small lap quilt and this baby quilt. I even made a doll sized quilt with the leftover pieces when I ran out of blocks. I'm not actually out of the fabric, but this made a very large dent in my Very Hungry Caterpillar fabric stash.

I was inspired by Cynthia's quilting, and used these large spirals, which are rounded corner rectangles on the outside and become ovals in the center. Our motifs are a little different because my centers don't come to a point like hers do... this was just a result of not taking another look at my inspiration when I was actually sitting down to do the quilting. I found this pattern easy to quilt on my domestic machine. There were just a couple places that I ended up with a bit of wonky space and had to fill in with a non-spiral. I don't think I got any shots of those "creative areas." ;-)

I backed the quilt with this wonderful rainbow fabric. I may love the back even more than the front.

Since the front was very colorful and the back is a vibrant rainbow, I opted for a black an white (with a spec of red) fabric for the binding.

I named it Caterpillar Fizz, a nod to the pattern name. Here's my simple label. I attach my labels before quilting, so they're extra held in place by the quilting stitches.

This 36" x 36" quilt is going to a little 6-month-old and I hope he loves it to pieces.

Thanks for visiting!

I'm linking up to the Q3 Finish Along finishes party. See all my Q3 WIPs in my goal post.

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I'm so happy to be sharing this finished quilt. I bought the race car fabric quite a while ago and hadn't found a reason to use it until recently. I designed this quilt to feature the race cars without chopping them up to small. There are a fair number of partial seams, but I already mastered those while making my Purple Ninja quilt. I love bright colors and enjoyed pulling together the blender fabrics to accompany the race cars. I ordered the Ta Dot print in Apple and Crosshatch Sketch in Tangerine since I didn't have the right green or orange in my stash. So five of my seven fabrics are from my stash.

Each section is quilted in matching Aurifil thread (Red #2250, Burnt Orange #1133, Canary #2120, Spring Green #1231, Turquoise #2810). I chose to use the same motif in each matching section of the layout, and I wanted a variety of curves and lines. The cars each have a freeform, flamelike pattern (in Natural White #2021). The square sections each have a square spiral. I used large pebbles (I like to think of them as river rocks) in the top of each pair of rectangles and switchback quilting on the diagonal in the lower rectangle. The long, skinny rectangles were each quilted with a curvy zigzag that ended up looking like shark fins to me. It's been a while since I've done much free motion quilting, so it was fun to get back in the groove. It's so much more fun than quilting a bunch of parallel straight lines (that quilt will be done soon so I can share it!).

I had a great stripe in my stash that I chose for the backing, which drove the size of the quilt. It finished at 34" x 40". I think it's a great baby quilt size, even though this one will be going to a 4-year-old. It's still a great size for cuddling up with at that age. Certainly big enough to cover himself on the couch for reading or TV watching.

Since the quilt was full of color and the backing was, um... loud, I decided to bind it in a black and white. It's the first time that I have made a straight grain binding which I found a little more picky to work with, but I wanted to keep the crosshatch pattern on the binding on the diagonal.

What do you like best about making quilts for kids?

Thanks for visiting!

I'm linking up to Finish It Friday, TGIFF and Needle and Thread Thursday, as well as the Q3 Finish Along finishes party. See all my Q3 WIPs in my goal post.